I want to talk about masculinity. Specifically, the hegemonic variety that legitimises a dominant role in society for the male sex and comfortably embraces misogyny, homophobia, transphobia, and violence.

Is it going too far to suggest that socially destructive maleness underpins much of the most shocking behaviour in the world? At a macro level, Trump, Putin, Modi, Xi, leaders of the Israel Defence Forces, Hamas and Hezbollah are all on the record for blatant toxic masculinity.

Regardless of political ambitions, these individuals are aggressive authoritarians who have weaponised machismo and sexism to provoke base instincts while blurring any concerns about their character and competence. They are selfish, narrow-minded, and unkind.

Closer to home, we have Andrew Tate. Four UK women are suing him for a combination of offences including rape, assault and coercive control. Tate also faces serious legal challenges in the US and Romania.

Yet he is one of the best-known figures on TikTok. The malign influence of the ‘manosphere’, fuelled in part by hateful online content inspired by Tate’s disgraceful pronouncements, continues to preoccupy parents, teachers and social services.

Impressionable schoolboys are especially vulnerable to misogynistic influencers and cyber-bullies who advocate demeaning attitudes towards women that can extend to physical threats and brutality.

To this point, last Saturday’s Guardian featured the results from a recent NASUWT survey. Schoolteachers reported on misbehaviour, aimed at female staff, caused by the comments on social media from people like Tate and Trump.

More positively, responses to the Netflix series Adolescence suggest an acknowledgement that it’s time to confront the impact of toxic masculinity.

But we must progress beyond weighing and measuring the problem. What is it about minority groups and particularly women that excite so much anger and hostility?

Last time I looked my female allies were half the population and everyone’s mother!

I suspect fear and suspicion are the root causes, rendering the words and actions of the most toxic males even more feeble and grotesquely medieval.

However, as with many enormous challenges, it is hard to identify what individuals can do to help. But here’s my hope, for what it’s worth.

I have deliberately avoided associating poisonous masculinity with the generic term for adult male humans, namely men.

This has been a bit tricky. But, for me, it is important.

I am heartily sick of hearing my part of our species lambasted for the activities of a pathetic minority, however powerful, with whom I just happen to share reproductive organs.

So, toxic males are not men. They are vermen. Can we please adopt this term, reserving the word men for the type of males that the planet needs, perhaps more than ever?

Thank you. I feel better already.